Zorokuen Gate 2 (Kitamae Ship Owner's Residence, Former Sakaya Choichiro Family Residence)

A gate without doors

Zorokuen Gate 2 is a timber gate in Hashitatemachi, Kaga City, Ishikawa Prefecture, built during the Taisho era between 1912 and 1925 and listed as a Registered Tangible Cultural Property on 17 February 1999.

Set in front of the main house, it consists of nothing but a pair of heavy square posts, each capped with a copper cover. Low walls with openwork panels and a taller waist-height wall run out on either side, 6.9 metres in all.

There are no doors, and no roof over the opening itself. Two posts and two lengths of wall, and yet no one arriving at Zorokuen Gate 2 is in any doubt about where the entrance is.

The face the estate turns to the street

The criterion was contribution to the historic landscape. Standing at the front of the property, Zorokuen Gate 2 largely determines how the estate reads from the road.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs describes the composition as plain but composed, carrying a dignity appropriate to the home of a Kitamae-bune ship owner. There are many ways to make a gate impressive; this household stopped at two heavy posts. Kaga Hashitate, where the houses of ship owners and captains from the late Edo to mid Meiji periods survive, was selected as a national Important Preservation District for Groups of Traditional Buildings on 27 December 2005, and the way each estate meets the street is what that landscape consists of.

Copper caps and openwork walls

Look closely at the tops of the posts. A copper cover sits over each end grain. Rain entering the exposed grain rots a post from within, so the timber is capped with metal. The part is purely practical, though copper weathers to green over the years and the contrast against the wood keeps shifting.

The flanking walls come in two heights. The lower one carries openwork panels that let the eye through, marking the boundary without closing it. Zorokuen Gate 2 was registered together with those walls, and separating the posts from them would leave the arrangement unintelligible.

Seeing Gate 2

Zorokuen Gate 2 faces the main house and can be seen from the street without paying admission. It is worth turning back once inside, though, to see how the main house is framed between the two posts.

The gate stands outdoors and can be seen whenever the estate is open. Check the rules on photography in advance. Opening hours and the route from Kaga Onsen Station are on the Zorokuen estate page.